Free Republic

During the presidential campaign, Ron Paul was asked whether the Republicans would succeed in overturning Obamacare.

Paul said: I don’t know about that, but regardless, Obamacare will be overturned by the laws of economics.

One can pretty much extend that to the entire cradle to grave welfare state now reignant in the West (as Europe is sadly discovering).

The difference is this: overturning Obamacare by legislation or court ruling would have been quick and painless. The gradual unraveling of the law due to its own errors and contradictions will be long and painful.

This is terrific.

The health law mandates that states set up these exchanges but doesn’t give them any money to do it. If states don’t set them up, then the law says that the feds can set up a plan. But the law didn’t set up any funding for that either.

All Boehner has to do is refuse to fund these exchanges (”sorry, the federal government is broke.”).

We may not be able to repeal O-care but we can start eviscerating it section by section.

The House Republicans can’t repeal Obamacare, true. That much is settled.

But that doesn’t mean nothing can be done. Already several Republican governors have said they won’t implement the health care exchanges mandated under the Act. Under the Act, if a state doesn’t enact the exchange then the federal government can come in and set one up. But the Act doesn’t allocated money toward this end. Therefore, since the Republicans hold the purse strings in the House, all they need to do is not fund the federal exchanges (”sorry, the federal government is broke”). The effect will be to let the states opt out of that requirement, which is not a small deal, since the exchanges were one of the mechanisms designed to insure when and if employers drop coverage.

Just because O-care can’t be repealed in its entirety, doesn’t mean that we can’t find creative ways to eviscerate it piece by piece.

Regarding demographics: You should be very worried.

The demographics are bad and getting worse.

The electorate has become tribal — voting as a bloc on race, gender, sexual orientation — and therefore less fluid and less able to be persuaded.

Romney won the white vote in a landslide. There just aren’t enough of them anymore. That’s the blunt takeaway of this election.

About the only pathway to victory I see at this point is for the Left to fragment. A dismal economy might force their various thieving constituencies to fight over the diminishing pie, thus fragmenting their coalition. Its hard for me to see conservatives winning the presidency any other way.

The disturbing thing about this election is that it was so TRIBAL. The electorate defined itself by its race, gender, sexual orientation. When you’re dealing with a tribal electorate, they are impervious to persuasion, they simply vote their tribe.

I have little reason, therefore, to think that the slight majority of the electorate that voted for Obama will ever “come calling” at any point for conservatism.

The only way back to power for conservatives at this point is to hope that the Left fragments. This might happen if the economy and markets force austerity measures like in Europe and Obama’s thieving constituency is fighting over the diminishing pie.

To hope that we can persuade them with sweet reason, however, is a fool’s errand I fear.

I’m very sorry.
Obviously I wouldn’t have answered as I did had I known your circumstances.
I salute your husband’s service.

Never??
Why? An attachment to the soil?
America is an idea. Freedom. Once it goes, its not America any more. Get it?

The Republican Party will come back in some shape and form. Americans won’t accept a one-party state.

Its America that’s through.

I only see two choices: emigration to another country or a movement of secession.

The first is an individual choice, the latter a risky political move.

The Cato Institute publishes a list of countries ranked by economic freedom. About a decade ago, we were third behind Hong Kong and Singapore. Today we are something like 18th. So there are a raft of countries to consider moving to, but that would entail a huge lifestyle adjustment. If you’re young, unmarried, and willing to try something new, you could go to New Zealand or Switzerland, both of which are small, prosperous stable countries, with no demographic problems, and higher in economic freedom than the U.S.

If the US declines economically or there is some other triggering event, then the idea of secession may take hold. There are all sorts of secessionist movements afoot in Europe right now.

If we had a truly federal country, as the founders established, with sovereign states, then it would matter much less who the president was and you could have a wide variation in policies between states. But with the leviathan federal government of today, that’s just not an option.

>>Bluntly put, I do not believe there are enough white voters left to give Romney anything but the slimmest of margins<<

I sure wish I wasn’t right.

Ominous implications for the America we once knew.

Denial is the first stage of grief as they say. And there are many in the conservative establishment - the same folks who assured us that Romney would win - who are going to try spin tales of a better future.

You are correct. America as we knew it cannot be saved. A nation is a fragile thing and we are no longer one nation. This has tremendous implications for the future, the parameters of which we cannot yet fathom.

Denial is the first stage of grief.

America can’t be saved.

Through this entire election, all the right-wing mavens from Will to Barone to Hewitt to Medved, were whistling past the graveyard, all for what? To raise a few bucks for the dying corpse of “conservatism”?

I have a better idea, Mr. and Mrs. White Middle Class Conservative. Save your money. You’ll need it as the Depression continues to unfold.

When the Right finally wakes up and realizes its a permanent minority in the new Amerika, then things will start to get interesting.

If we do not see a serious seccesionist movement in this country by 2030 at the latest, I will be shocked. Seccessionist movements are springing up all over Europe as their financial crisis deepens and ours is just getting started.

everyone is playing the confidence game.
Our side included.

Very nice.
Also meaningless.

Wishful thinking.

Trust me, there were a lot of McCain diehards on this board predicting he would pull it out because the polls were biased. I know, I was arguing with them.

Gallup and all the other pollsters are showing the race essentially tied, so I don’t see how anything they can have released can belie anything I’ve said.

Bluntly put, I do not believe there are enough white voters left to give Romney anything but the slimmest of margins. If he gets 60% of the white vote, which is a lot, and the white vote is 78% of the total, as Gallup has projected, and then he gets 15% of what remains, that brings him to 50.1%, if my math is correct.

So let’s curb our enthusiasm.

I didn’t miss 2010. Conservatives can still win lower turnout off year elections. Hell, we won the Senate race in Illinois. Doesn’t mean Illinois will go for Hussein in 2012.

I don’t know why you’re upset with anything I’ve said. All I said is that Romney might win in a very close race, but that its not in the cards demographically for him to win by a landslide. I have no doubt that if we had the demographics of 1980, he’d win handsomely. But we don’t.

If you want to indulge in an exercise that will make you very sad, go back and read these boards in 2008. We heard that the “pollsters were in the tank for Obama”, that there was a vast underground of hidden voters that would magically appear to win it for McCain, that Palin was energizing the crowds, etc. etc. Hell I wanted to believe it too. How could this beautiful country vote for Barack Hussein Obama for president? How was that even possible??

Denial is the first stage of griefm and there is much to grieve. That said, let’s hoist the champagne and hope that Mitt can pull this one out.

Gladly!!
I want Romney to win passionately.
But I’m also realistic about the state of America in 2012.

In 1980 the mainstreama media (unlike today, there was no other) hated Reagan but didn’t love Carter. He was always viewed with a certain suspicion in the Northeast because of his religiousity. Today’s mainstream media has a relationship with Obama roughly equivalent to the relationship an observant Catholic has toward the Pope. Their dislike of Romney isn’t personal, they would hate anyone opposing Obama.